Kenny, in my opinion, is by far one of the most interesting characters in south park and I'd love to see more episodes of him as Mysterion.Anyway, during the episodes involving Coon and Friends, they say that nobody knows that Kenny dies repeatedly. However, in earlier seasons the characters Cartman and Timmy have both expressed the idea that they know his secret. In 'Cartmanland' Cartman says 'Kenny dies all the time!' and in 'Cripple Fight' Timmy tries to kill Jimmy by dressing Jimmy up as Kenny.it'd be fun to see some episodes addressing this.

Kenny's habit of dying and coming back was based on a childhood friend of Trey Parker's (also called Kenny). The real-life Kenny would sometimes skip school and then turn up the following day like nothing had happened (read Wikipedia's article on the character).

I'm guessing Parker and Stone randomly came up with the idea of "Mysterion" as a fictional means of explaining how the cartoon Kenny kept coming back.

Really? I remember a commentary where Trey talks about his poor friend who wore a parka all the time and it muffled his voice and stuff. It's somewhere in season one commentary, I think. I always figured he was the basis for Kenny.

To believe in something just because you're afraid of the consequences if you don't believe in something is no reason to believe in something.

South Park Studios' first interview with Matt and Trey was on May 10, 2001. The question below was asked of them:

Ahrinak: How did you decide the names for timmy, kenny and the other children?Trey: It's the first name that pops up into your head. the only one that was based on anyone was Cartman whose last name is Carpman.Matt: Other than that they're just all kind of generic I think.

On the other hand, I did find this clip from the Paley Center interview in 2000, which does confirm that Kenny is named after one of Trey's friends who wore an orange coat and mumbled so badly they couldn't understand him, and who was the poorest kid in the neighborhood. And they all waited at a bus stop too.

As rad as it would have been if the person Kenny was based off of had the ability to come back to life, the character isn't bound to any real event. I'm just saying it would be neat for the writers of south park to revisit that ability and explore it a little more.